Day 1144 - Blind Guides

Some of my earlier posts sought to fathom the fine line that can separate activism from true compassion. A recent local event reprises this issue. Some will read these words and conclude I am judging people. I am not. I am asking the reader to consider whether they are a blind guide or being led by a blind guide.

 A local man here in Chattanooga is confined to a wheelchair and spends much of his time begging for money, often in front of performance venues. The Chattanooga city police arrested him for “aggressive panhandling.” 

This is not a neat, cut-and-dry case. This is not the first time this person has been involved in alleged criminal activity. But... that is what makes this case salient and refractory.

A local TV news cast states the man has an “extensive criminal background.” (Of course if you are an African-American living in an urban ghetto, chances are you have an extensive record.) According to another TV news report, the police report states the Chattanooga Visitors Bureau calls this beggar “the number one problem downtown.”(The CEO of the bureau denies this statement.)

An activist group called Mercy Junction (whose success I hope for highly) objects rightly to the treatment of this man. A Mercy Junction spokesperson claims “poverty is the problem in Chattanooga, not panhandlers.” She demands the panhandler be released from jail and offers some very generalized criticism against “the powers of the establishment,” (My choice of words because as we all know the state has no power over the spirit.) but does not seem particularly concerned for the person's state of life.

Another spokesperson for Mercy Junction is quoted in the local TV news cast as saying they want to “raise awareness about the treatment of panhandlers and poor and homeless people in the tourist district.”

I wonder if every party involved in this affair has turned the world turned upside down? Have they all become blind guides?

Certainly the visitor’s bureau's interest is mainly Machiavellian, that is, in clearing the streets with tourist venues of folks they consider “undesirable” in the interest of economic growth. The bureau speaking for the powers of economic growth see arrest and imprisonment as a way to do it. They have fallen fully under the sway of greed and abandoned any sense of Christian value of the impoverished as a person.

The police arrested this fellow under the aegis of a new state law clearly aimed at “cleaning up the streets” of "undesirables." There are gang killings in this community weekly, if not often daily, and overt drug-dealing on the street. There are children with one or no parent whose values are shaped by the crime in the neighborhood. It is a flagrant outrage for the police to devote attention to panhandling rather than to community violence and safety. It shows certainly they have a distorted focus on what law enforcement priorities ought to be and have abandoned any sense of value of the citizen as a person.

The minister and his cohort who are quoted in the news articles run an activist center in one of the more impoverished, drug and gang-infested neighborhoods in town (Highland Park). I know this because I am on those streets in the shadow of that activist center several days a week looking after the interests of one resident or another. I see the burned out and/or condemned houses.  I see the wrecked cars and the houses with folks  just suspiciously milling around coming and going. I see the children wandering around unaccompanied.  I hear the stories of the shootings and killings. Mercy Junction sits in their own land of opportunity, their Galilee, to show Christ's compassion.

For these activists (sic) to see their primary role as wrapping themselves in the mantle of self-proclaimed prophet and being mosquitoes tweaking the powers that be about their commitment to injustice with a blind eye to their neighbors suggests for them talk is far cheaper that the risk of their direct action to uplift people of their neighborhood. 

They come very close to objectifying the people they speak for, turning them into political issues that give them opportunity for publicity. Why do they let this man who worships with them in their own congregation beg rather than give him their money or feed him so he does not have to beg? It seems easier for them to talk about collective guilt and judge others (the way they were judged as youth?) than accepting individual responsibility (and guilt).  Have they too abandoned Christian compassion for the citizen as a person, embracing activism in lieu of personal action to directly help the person in need?

It is easy to point to government and say it should spend more on the poor or change its policies. It is a far more personally expensive and risky to roll up one’s sleeves and jump into its local community creating and conducting direct programs to help people lift themselves out of poverty.

Each of these three organizations seem to pander to its constituency and none of them seem prepared to tackle the real problem, to offer a hand to lift up those who seek a better life, much less commit their own money to it.

Mercy Junction does offer a positive value. It calls attention to injustice that hopefully resonates in some people who ordinarily would just pass by the person “in the ditch.”

But how much more could Mercy Junction do as a worshipping community if it “walked the talk” and practiced a working model showing how every individual can make a difference by committing an intentional personal act to alleviate the poverty of one. What if personally and corporately it practiced real Christian compassion in this case? Assuming the person wants to change, what can Mercy Junction do to help this wheelchair-bound beggar to obtain release from this life of begging by moving into a more productive life focused on helping others?

The ultimate cause for the persistence of poverty is the very thing that afflicts the beggar and the rich, most folks love their money, and those who have a lot of it often love it more than they love those who are in need. The beggar and the rich person love money over spiritual health.They are both impoverished.

This points out the insidious nature and irony of poverty. Poverty is a spiritual condition that afflicts those who thirst for money over grace. Money, fame and publicity are the blind guides of spiritual poverty. Grace is the currency of true value. People who do not feel compassionate obligation to follow the role  of the good Samaritan, to stop and minister to that injured neighbor in the ditch on the side of the road are locked in spiritual poverty. They seem not to get Luke 4:14-21. Such committed action carries more individual and spiritual power than the state can ever muster or prevail against. It changes lives. It breaks the bindings of poverty.

The proper question is not the one I first posed to Mercy Junction, “Why do they let him beg rather than give him their money so he does not have to beg?” Giving money only cements one's stasis in life. The proper question is what are the visitors' bureau, the police and the self-proclaimed prophets doing to change the lives of people such as the wheel-chair-bound beggar so both beggar and helper become productive members of Christian society living their vocation, i.e., their calling?

The visitors bureau and the police are convinced they exist to defend their and the state's self-interest. Compassion does not seem to be part of their equation.  The Mercy Junction spokesperson, an advocate for Christian justice, would do good to realize and proclaim “poverty is NOT the problem in Chattanooga, or any other city. It is the absence of compassion." But then again, what is the lack of compassion but spiritual poverty? And what does spiritual poverty do but suborn injustice?
Amen.

Day 1137 - Why Do We Satisfy the Crowd?

A Bible study at Second Presbyterian Church, January 21, 2016, Chattanooga, TN.

Gospel Reading: Mark 15:1-20

After the hurried, secretive and thoroughly theologically illegal arrest and trial by the Sanhedrin, the antagonists are still faced with a problem, how to accomplish the verdict since they have no authority to do so.

Mark 15:1-5  As soon as it was morning, the chief priests held a consultation with the elders and scribes and the whole council. They bound Jesus, led him away, and handed him over to Pilate.  ² Pilate asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” He answered him, “You say so.”  ³ Then the chief priests accused him of many things.  ⁴ Pilate asked him again, “Have you no answer? See how many charges they bring against you.”  ⁵ But Jesus made no further reply, so that Pilate was amazed.

I can’t but wonder what the chief priests wanted to talk about in this morning meeting after the outrage of the railroaded trial of the last evening that violated every principle of religious law. 

Notice the difference in focus between the religious leaders and Pilate. Pilate asked if he is the King of Jews, but the religious leaders asked if he was the Messiah, or son of God. Did they suggest this alternative wording, King of the Jews, to put Jesus in direct conflict with the Emperor? Why did Jesus obliquely answer Pilate’s first question, “Are you the King of Jews?” but refuse to respond to Pilate’s question about the many accusations of the Sanhedrin?

Mark 15:6-8  Now at the festival he used to release a prisoner for them, anyone for whom they asked.  ⁷ Now a man called Barabbas was in prison with the rebels who had committed murder during the insurrection.  ⁸ So the crowd came and began to ask Pilate to do for them according to his custom.

It must be admitted that there is no evidence in either Jewish or Roman law for the custom of freeing a prisoner to which the Markan evangelist alludes. (Why would Rome free an insurrectionist under any condition?)

In this melee, I cannot help but wonder who is this “crowd?” The Sanhedrin had perhaps 70 members, so that might take a big room to have the first trial, and if they all showed for Pilate’s inquiry that would comprise a reasonable crowd. Many suggest Pilate did this questioning out on a palatial veranda before a large crowd of people. It may be possible, but from the day of His entry into Jerusalem, the crowd has been solidly in favor of Jesus and the religious leaders fear the reaction of the crowd if they act against Jesus.

Have his followers fled in the face of this imminent execution by Rome?

Mark 15: 9-14 ⁹ Then he answered them, “Do you want me to release for you the King of the Jews?”  ¹⁰ For he realized that it was out of jealousy that the chief priests had handed him over.  ¹¹ But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have him release Barabbas for them instead.  ¹² Pilate spoke to them again, “Then what do you wish me to do with the man you call the King of the Jews?”  ¹³ They shouted back, “Crucify him!”  ¹⁴ Pilate asked them, “Why, what evil has he done?” But they shouted all the more, “Crucify him!”

I repeat my first question. Who is this crowd? Who is calling for the death of Jesus? Though the instrument is Rome, everything about this passage points to the Sanhedrin.

Consider the criminal’s name, Barabbas. Bar-abbas is a Greek transliteration of the Hebrew “son of(bar) the father(abba).“(Abba is a familiar term, most closely translated, “Daddy.”)

The similarity of Bar-Abbas to Son of Man/Son of God and its implicit irony that a criminal with the same name is being freed so the true Son of God can be crucified can’t be overlooked. They were willing to let the son of a father go but wanted to crucify the son of The Father.

Do you think the familiar usage, Abba/Daddy emphasizes and connects the emotional value/connection between Jesus and God as father and son in the same way as our experience of seeing one of our sons harmed or killed unjustly.

Mark 15: 15 ¹⁵ So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released Barabbas for them; and after flogging Jesus, he handed him over to be crucified.

 “Flogging” is an understated act to our modern ears. Flogging was a brutal beating, done with a multistrapped leather that had metal pieces tied to their ends. The true word is scourging. Scourging severely injured a person, leaving open, bleeding wounds and cuts to the bone. Scourging left a person severely injured and bleeding. Perhaps Pilate retained some sense of “mercy” on this unjustly condemned man, and anticipated the flogging would hasten his death? On the other hand, scourging was routine before crucifixion.

Who killed Jesus?

A great deal of often-intense debate has centered on the question of the responsibility for Jesus’ execution. Some say the story of Jesus’ condemnation and execution is unreliable. Since crucifixion is a non-Jewish form of execution, his trial and death must have been entirely at the discretion of the Roman authorities. The argument continues that it was the Roman governor, not the Jewish council, that condemned Jesus to death; that is, that the trial and execution of Jesus “were exclusively Roman.” However, most scholars today agree that Jewish authorities collaborated with Roman authorities in having Jesus put to death. This would certainly be consistent with groups such as the Herodians and Sadducees who irreligiously courted Rome’s favor.

The debate certainly raises the question, “Why was Pilate willing to go along with the Jewish religious leaders' desires?” Was he weak and wavering? Or was he deflecting blame?

Jerusalem was always in a heightened security by Rome during Passover because of its history of militant action by Jewish zealots against Rome. Did Pilate fear unrest, harbor doubt or was he toying with the Sanhedrin?

Zealots stirred the pot of the political and social setting of Jewish Palestine in the time of Pilate, so Pilate might be reluctant to execute in such a public and provocative manner a popular prophet from Galilee, whose many followers were present in Jerusalem. It could very well have instigated a riot, the very thing Pilate hoped to avoid. If Jesus had no military intentions, then he was little more than a pest. A beating and some jail time would suffice. But no, the ruling priests wanted him dead.  At the same time Pilate and Rome used the religious leaders to keep the crowds quiet. In a Jewish religious perspective, the religious leaders were prostitutes to Rome in a degrading, even blasphemous situation.

It was quite a conundrum; the priests wanted Jesus dead but feared the crowd. Pilate probably did not particularly care to have Jesus crucified but the ideas expressed by Jesus did represent a threat to Rome. Both sides could achieve their ends but blame the other for it if necessary. Everyone had a someone to please.

Mark 15:16-20  Then the soldiers led him into the courtyard of the palace (that is, the governor’s headquarters); and they called together the whole cohort.  ¹⁷ And they clothed him in a purple cloak; and after twisting some thorns into a crown, they put it on him.  ¹⁸ And they began saluting him, “Hail, King of the Jews!”  ¹⁹They struck his head with a reed, spat upon him, and knelt down in homage to him.  ²⁰ After mocking him, they stripped him of the purple cloak and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him out to crucify him.

From Craig Evans, Word Bible Commentary, Mark Vol. 34B: “The mockery (by the soldiers) mimics aspects of the Roman triumph in which Caesar was hailed as emperor and received homage." The purple cloak, the crown of thorns in place of the normal crown of ivy/laurel, the reed with which Jesus is struck on the head, and the bowing in mock homage are all components of the apparel worn and homage received by the Roman emperor, who at the triumph wore a purple robe and laurel wreath and held a scepter.  Being dressed in purple would also recall the attire of Hellenistic kings of an earlier period.

Whether or not  the writer of Mark edited the event, especially the mockery, to correspond more closely with Roman imperial traditions, it is probable that this story approximates what actually happened to Jesus, and sets the stage for the reversal of this mockery by the centurion at the tomb.

Reflection

The two trials of Jesus emphasize the close collaboration of the Jews and Rome. Jesus was a threat to both.

There are some painful reversals in this passage. The Chief Priests and Sanhedrin were fearful of a negative reaction of the people to Jesus.  Rome was fearful of the trouble of riotous Jews during Passover. In the appearance before Pilate one wonders exactly how many people were present and who they were?

Is this a small group of priests who had just convicted Jesus in an illegal religious trial, or have the crowds suddenly turned against Jesus?

I am inclined to think three “crowds” were involved, one was the crowd of the Sanhedrin and the other was the array of Roman forces standing with Pilate. Both cultivated relationship to further power, the highest Roman virtue, and the antithesis of the highest Christian virtue, humility. They only sought to achieve their end without having to accept the blame for it.

Where was the third and only crowd that matters, the many followers? I suspect they scattered in the face of Roman power as Jesus said they would (Mark 14:27-30).

Does this passage cause us to ask if we also have followed the crowd and scattered when asked if we stand with Jesus? Does it cause us to wonder if we have worked with others to achieve a desired, but less than honorable end by being able to defer blame to the other? Does it remind us of the times we have gone along with the crowd (or fled in fear) in spite of knowing we would be suborning an injustice by the crowd?

Day 1123 - A Woman's Good Deed

A lesson for the men’s bible Study at Second Presbyterian Church, Chattanooga, TN, Jan. 7, 2016

The subject of Mark 14:1-27 is the anointing of the son of man by a woman and Jesus’ observation to his objecting disciples objecting over her extravagant waste of money, “You can show kindness to the poor any time you wish,” and the consequences of this event.

A careful reading of Mark reveals many instances of irony in comments of Jesus (See Boren and Jerry Camery-Hogatt for a detailed discussion of iurony in Mark.) Many of these are quite penetrating and severe. This passage of Mark is heavy with irony on many levels. It’s irony challenges our tenancy to hold onto commonly held sense of “value” and also our desire to reduce the complex and difficult parts of the world, such as the poor, to easily understood “labels.”

To refresh our memory, irony is a figure of speech with an outward appearance of meaning that is the opposite of what is implied. When it is done well, it is very difficult to be certain which the speaker means, the literal or its opposite, thus it draws out a contradiction between convention and actuality. If I said, “I worked really hard all weekend and hardly had any time to rest or sleep.” A relatively simple example of irony would be a listener’s response, “Oh how nice.” Irony is a serious play with our “commonsense” or typical understanding of the world. The danger of good irony is that the conventional understanding may be seized rather than the intended opposite.

Let’s read the passage and see what we find.

Mark 14:1   It was two days before the Passover and the festival of Unleavened Bread. The chief priests and the scribes were looking for a way to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill him;  ² for they said, “Not during the festival, or there may be a riot among the people.”

Mark gives us the full picture of what future befalls Jesus. Verse 14:1 cannot be any clearer, the religious authorities will not rest until they devise and accomplish a plan to kill Jesus.

Where is the irony in these two verses? Who is in charge of the spiritual well being of the people of Judah? What is their charge, but to attend to the spiritual well being of the Hebrews. What festival is beginning? It is Passover that remembers the great act of deliverance of Israel.

Yet here, the chief priests and scribes plot to kill the one who has been sent to redeem and deliver Israel from death for all time.

Mark 14:3   While he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at the table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment of nard, and she broke open the jar and poured the ointment on his head. 

When men “sat at table” it really meant they were reclining on mats or couch for a meal. By inference there would be only men present except perhaps for servants who brought food. Yet in defiance of all custom, a woman enters and approaches the central guest.

This woman does not just enter, rather she carries a jar of nard, a spice imported from India that cost about the amount of a full year's wage for someone. She does not just open the jar, the Greek verb, syntribo, means to violently shatter into pieces. (Literally meaning “rub two sticks together, when used with persons it has the sense of “beat to jelly;” with parts of the body, “to crush, shiver;” and here in its metaphorical material sense is to fully shatter. Perhaps all these means are at play symbolically.) The sense of complete destruction of this thing of value is profoundly emphasized and is symbolic of Jesus against the Rome and the religious leaders. It foreshadows his own death. In parallel, this woman being there also shatters conventional custom. One could see irony in the fact that conventional customary value holds this woman is committing an outrage, not giving tribute and honor to Jesus. Which value should these fellow diners accept?

There is more irony. A leper is an unclean person who is fastidiously avoided, yet here Jesus and his associates gather.

There is more irony. On the heels of the chief priests and scribes desiring to kill Jesus, this woman’s anointing might mean two things. The act of anointing signifies the identification of royalty, a king. See for example, 1 Samuel 9:15-17, 10:1. Yet one also anoints the body before burial. Thus a woman who has broken the custom and tradition of the time is announcing and honoring the King, the Messiah in the house of a leper defying every element of the religious leader’s.

⁴ But some were there who said to one another in anger, “Why was the ointment wasted in this way?  ⁵ For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii, and the money given to the poor.” And they scolded her. 

The disciples are enraged at this display and “wanton” waste of value. Again, the Greek verb “enrage” expresses a sense of chaos and pandemonium. The word conveys a sense of random, confused and undirected anger, or backbiting in an emotionally riotous or highly charged wrathful atmosphere. Do you see the irony? This woman is disrupting all convention to honor the thing of greatest value (about the be sacrificed), yet the disciples are focused on the material value.  They “scold her” for doing a good thing. “Scold her” in Greek is a verb with two variants of intense action: snort (of horses), and be deeply moved (of people). The reader is left to wonder to what should the outrage be directed, to the woman’s waste of the nard’s intrinsic high worth, to the waste of the valuable nard itself on Jesus, or reflexively to the confused, enraged insiders who do not understand the act’s significance?

⁶ But Jesus said, “Let her alone; why do you trouble her? She has performed a good service for me. 

Why does Jesus say such a thing? It is because anointing carries these multiple meanings. Not only did the prophets anoint a new king, they also anointed the body of the deceased king before burial. Perhaps the highest sense of irony is that she anoints Jesus as king while simultaneously anoints his body, preparing it for burial.

Then Jesus validates these observations:

⁷ For you always have the poor with you, and you can show kindness to them whenever you wish; but you will not always have me.  ⁸ She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for its burial.  ⁹ Truly I tell you, wherever the good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her.”

Verse 7 is perhaps the most underappreciated and most misunderstood verse in the gospels. I remember my father, as do many others, quoting this verse to justify how pointless it is to help the poor. This only magnifies the subtlety of the irony. This is exactly what we want to think! Yet what Jesus is saying is, “So How does this woman who went to such great extent to honor me prevent you from helping the poor? You can use the things you value as precious to help them at any time.”

This verse, in my mind, captures the essence of the meaning of Christian charity. What things of value to you are you using to glorify Christ?

The greatest irony, perhaps, is what this gracious, honorable act seals. It so angers Judas that he seals the fate of Jesus:

Mark 14:10   Then Judas Iscariot, who was one of the twelve, went to the chief priests in order to betray him to them.  ¹¹ When they heard it, they were greatly pleased, and promised to give him money. So he began to look for an opportunity to betray him.

Mark 14:12   On the first day of Unleavened Bread, when the Passover lamb is sacrificed, his disciples said to him, “Where do you want us to go and make the preparations for you to eat the Passover?”  ¹³ So he sent two of his disciples, saying to them, “Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you; follow him,  ¹⁴ and wherever he enters, say to the owner of the house, ‘The Teacher asks, Where is my guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’  ¹⁵ He will show you a large room upstairs, furnished and ready. Make preparations for us there.”  ¹⁶ So the disciples set out and went to the city, and found everything as he had told them; and they prepared the Passover meal.

Mark is using his literary devices here. Please read Mark 11:1-10 that describes the events of a week earlier as Jesus prepared to enter Jerusalem. This passage almost exactly parallels these verses in Chapter 11. In a sense, Mark is signifying we have come “full circle.” Mark reveals the irony in the act that led to his entry into Jerusalem as King as they are now repeated (in a way) to reveal his true glory in his death and rule in the new Kingdom.

Mark 14:17   When it was evening, he came with the twelve.  ¹⁸ And when they had taken their places and were eating, Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me, one who is eating with me.”  ¹⁹ They began to be distressed and to say to him one after another, “Surely, not I?”  ²⁰ He said to them, “It is one of the twelve, one who is dipping bread into the bowl with me.  ²¹ For the Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that one by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that one not to have been born.”

How do you understand these particular verses? Why would the disciples react this way? Is it possible that the disciples do not understand or know of Judas’ weaknesses, or perhaps, even they harbor his doubt in the ever-persistent clash between reason and faith? Mark’s gospel, after all, if it has no other theme, is about having faith.

Mark 14:22   While they were eating, he took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it he broke it, gave it to them, and said, “Take; this is my body.”  ²³ Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to them, and all of them drank from it.  ²⁴ He said to them, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.  ²⁵ Truly I tell you, I will never again drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”

Does this passage really need an explication? It is the enactment of what I call “The Shared Meal.” Communion at its most basic level is the place where Christ comes to us. It forms the beautiful parallel to baptism that symbolizes the act of us coming to Christ.

Mark 14:26    When they had sung the hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.  ²⁷ And Jesus said to them, “You will all become deserters; for it is written,

            ‘I will strike the shepherd,

                        and the sheep will be scattered.’

Reflection

The irony of vv 26,27, if we chose to see it, is that even those of us who shall profess and celebrate allegiance to Christ are sinners who will stumble. But this compassionate act of God to send his son for sacrifice to leaders of His own people, an act of value that transcends the most costly exhibit of human value, as the woman’s shattered alabaster jar of nard, overcomes our foibles and redeems us anyway.

There may be another irony in this for us to decide. We put value on action and on earned compensation. We think, “Why should the laborer in the field for 1 hour be paid the same as for the one who labored 8?”  Can the most extreme cost of anything, God, Himself, purchase the thing of least value, any reprobate sinner? Is it for us to decide who has been purchased?